"There's always one more Sunday, and there's always more to give."~Larry Kegan

As we prepare for the May 17th Salute to the Music of Bob Dylan I’ve been sifting through a variety of interesting sources in search of items to highlight pertaining to the various musicians who will be performing here at Duluth’s Sacred Heart Music Center. In the process I discovered a very cool video of two stars of that show, Scarlet Rivera and Gene Lafond, making music with Bob Dylan’s boyhood friend Larry Kegan 32 years ago today.

Larry Kegan met young Robert Zimmerman at a Herzl Camp and the two became friends for life. A diving accident left Kegan a paraplegic when he was only 15 years old, and 10 years later he became a quadriplegic in a car accident. But everyone who crossed his path had the same thing to say about him, a rare individual who was an inspiration to all.

Gene Lafond was also a friend of Larry Kegan’s in high school. When Zimmerman, now Dylan, began touring in earnest in the 70’s, a road show that has continued in various forms to this day, he invited his old friend Larry to join him several times a year. For about 15 years Geno came along to assist, and gained an inside look at the Dylan road show as it transitioned from the Rolling Thunder Revue to the beginnings of his Never Ending Tour. Dylan’s friendship with Larry was such that he dedicated his album Street Legal (one of my favorites) to this boyhood pal who once shared Bob's dream of making music for a living.

Larry did become a performer. As Lafond said when I interviewed him last year, 'We used to sing together. Larry couldn’t scratch his nose but he’d go out and sing for people."

In 1981, during Bob Dylan's concert at the Holiday Star Music Theater in Merrillville, Ind., Dylan called up wheelchair-bound Larry Kegan for the encore and let him perform Chuck Berry's 'No Money Down' while Dylan played the tenor saxophone. A snapshot of this moment in time has been shared on audio here.

32 years ago today Larry, Scarlet and Geno performed at the West Bank hotspot Cafe Extempore, a period of time captured in Cyn Collins's West Bank Boogie. The YouTube video embedded below captures their rehearsal for this event. If you don't have time for the entire segment, Larry's rendition of More to Give qualifies as a "must listen."

Larry and Bob

Everyone who knew Larry Kegan was inspired by him. His last day on earth happened to be a major changepoint in history as he died on 9-11-2001, the day the Twin Towers fell. Dylan's Love & Theft was released that day and I can imagine Larry looking forward to listening to his lifetime friend's new recording. Instead, he became immersed in making phone calls from his home in Minnesota trying to affirm that all his friends were O.K. According toStreamingGoldies, he he died of a heart attack just hours later. At Larry's funeral service, the rabbi suggested that "God called Larry to heaven to help disabled victims make their transition to eternity. He couldn’t have picked a better man for the job."

In Memoriam of The CHAMPION OF ALL CAUSES...LARRY KEGAN (April 16th, 1942 - September 11th, 2001)

Photo Top Left: This photo appeared on the back cover of the booklet that accompanied Dylan's Tell Tale Signs (Columbia). American Jewish World (AJW) was asked for details about the picture. Jerry Waldman, former executive director of Jewish Family and Children’s Service, identified five teenagers pictured at Herzl Camp in the summer of 1957, including himself. Shown above are (l to r): Larry Kegan (fourth from left, dark jacket and white shirt), Waldman (singing), Bobby Zimmerman (Dylan), Louie Kemp and David Unowsky. Joe Marver, a St. Paul native now living in Carmel, Calif., called to say that he thinks Leon (Aryeh) Spotts, a Herzl counselor, took the photo. He also identified the boy, second from left, as Paul Black. Larry Kegan passed away in 2001. — M.S.

EdNote: This blog entry and others like it have the aim of raising awareness for the upcoming Salute to the Music of Bob Dylan concert which will kick off the 2014 North Country Dylan Celebration in Duluth and Hibbing. For tickets to this great event visit dulutharmory.org/events.

When Zimmy's closed its doors earlier this year a lot of hearts were broken. Not only has the Dylan-themed Hibbing restaurant been a destination for Dylan fans around the world, it has also been a centerpiece of Hibbing's annual Dylan Days celebration.

Though Linda and Bob Hocking were heartbroken by this turn of events, they weren't the only ones. Hibbing's Dylan Days itself was in jeopardy. The horses puling the wagon were tired.

In addition to the closing of Zimmy's you'll also read that Howard Street Booksellers is closing its doors. Joe and Mary Keyes are retiring. That's a real bummer, too.

* * * *For several years it had been an ambition of mine to have one of my Dylan paintings on display at Zimmy's. I intended to enter their Dylan art contest, but somehow never got around to it or ran afoul of a rules change regarding deadlines.

For the past five years I have had a chance to "sit at the table" and watch the manner in which the annual Dylan celebrations have been conducted here in the Northland. There were actually three entities, each one showing respect for the others. The Duluth committee continually made it clear that the Hibbing events were sacred and that whatever we did down here should not interfere with the original Dylan Days. Their mission became to lay to whet the appetite for those who had come long distances and offer more activities while here in the Northland, turning a weekend celebration into a week long celebration.

For those unaware, young Robert Zimmerman was born at St. Mary's Hospital here on Duluth's Central Hillside, his first house being a few blocks west where he lived till he was six and his father Abe took the family to Hibbing.

The third entity who has also been active in this annual reunion is the Armory Arts and Music Center (AAMC). When I first became aware of the Duluth Dylan Fest activities, I did not know that these were separate entities with separate aims. Only as I became more involved did I understand this. The primary objective of the AAMC is to see the restoration of this historic Duluth armory on London Road. It's history is much larger than Dylan, but the "place" is a central part of the Duluth-Dylan legacy, for it was here at the Armory that Bob Zimmerman drove down to see Buddy Holly two days before the airplane crash in an Iowa cornfield that took his life along with Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper.

It's the AAMC that has been responsible for bringing Scarlet Rivera, Gene Lafond and others for concerts to kick off the week's events each May. Last year's Salute to the Music of Bob Dylan, produced by "Magic Marc" Percansky, at Sacred Heart was such a stellar event that I can't imagine the AAMC being able to top it.

* * * *This week I re-read portions of an unpublished 1999 manuscript by Larry Kegan which at one time was online but was has since been withdrawn. Larry Kegan was Dylan's close friend when they were young. As a result of a neck injury Kegan was wheelchair bound for the rest of his life. The title of his unpublished book shows his wit and humor about this situation: Some Get The Chair.

Over the course of many years Bob invited Larry to go on tours with him. (See:Remembering Larry Kegan.) In the book he writes about events that show the importance of place. The story is about events that took place after a Friday night concert at the Indianapolis State Fairgrounds on a hot summer night in mid-July 1988. The next stop was to be Detroit, but Dylan gave instructions for the tour bus to take a detour through the small rural town of Fairmount, Indiana. Kegan writes:

Bob had already gotten out of his bus and was heading down the main drag. Dave, the bus driver, came over to the van and I asked him what we were doing here. "This is James Dean's town, where he grew up and where he's buried." "Where's Bob going," I asked? "He's going to check out the High School where he attended," he said. We hung out for a while around my van and Bob's bus.

Next thing you know a couple girls come over -- it's 1:30 in the morning -- and they learn that there's a James Dean Museum in town. (Actual name: The James Dean Gallery.) One thing led to another so that two Fairmount police escorted Bob to the museum which was opened for him and his friends. The place was handicapped accessible so Larry also had the privilege of getting the tour.

The place was a real trip into the Fifties. James Dean stuff everywhere. Posters from all three of his movies, EAST OF EDEN, REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, and GIANT. Clothes he wore in the movie and around town, They even had his basketball trunks he actually used in high school.

There's something to be said about the importance of place.

* * * *About fifteen years ago or so we went to a family reunion of sorts at Salt Fork, a resort in Southeast Ohio that my parents used to bring us when we were growing. Our families stayed at lakeside cabins for a week, sharing and making many fond memories. One day I drove into town to pick up some things from nearby Cambridge. To my surprise there was a Hopalong Cassidy Museum there. Hopalong Cassidy was a cowboy film and TV star back in the early days of television. William Boyd, the actor who played this fictional good guy cowboy with the black hat, was from Cambridge.

Dylan went out of his way to visit the places where his heroes were from. It's on record that he's been to Liverpool. I don't doubt he's paid a visit to Lubbock, Texas where the Buddy Holly Museum resides.

If a minor character like William Boyd or men with relatively short careers like Buddy Holly and James Dean have places dedicated to their honor in their home towns, it just seems like there should be something more in Duluth than three manhole covers and a section of street designated "Bob Dylan Way." As for getting your photo taken, you can stand in front of a small wall of memorabilia down the hall from the Brewhouse at Fitger's, or in front of the Buddy Holly & the Crickets poster in the entryway of the Armory Annex down on London Road.

It doesn't have to be much, but I'd like to see something more than what we've got. Zimmy's was such a place for Hibbing, and we mourn the loss.

* * * *Photos: Top right, Zimmy's 2012. Dylan painting by Ed Newman; Salute poster from 2014Photo of Larry Kegan in Belize was sent to me by a friend; photo by David Elwood.

Ennyman is a Life Under Construction. Writer, artist, philosopher, friend... visit www.enewman.biz to put your mind at e's.